Achilles explains to Priam the meaning of life

Such is the way the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals, that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows

There are two urns that stand on the door sill of Zeus They are unlike for the gifts they bestow an urn of evils, and urn of blessings

If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune

But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals

Source Homer Iltad 24 525-533